Would anyone live in a condo? (floor, roof, townhome, pools)

[dreamerman]

Considering that owning a condo has less responsibilities, less gardening work, and all you have to do is just work around the house to keep it nice and neat.

Would anyone ever consider living in a condo?

[cdelena]

You still have responsibility for maintenance, it is just expressed in dollars, AND you have others telling you what you can and cannot do with your property. I will never buy another condo.

[leens514]

i know lots of people who like condos over houses. I was looking at one condo and i asked about the age range of owners. Agent said there has been increase of retirees. It seems many older folks ( not all) but many do get tired of caring for a big house and the condo allows them to do exactly what you said...just worry about the inside of a home.

Or sometimes its more of what you can afford. Some people want a certain location and can't afford a house there and a condo is a compromise.

I lived in one because i wanted the location but couldn't afford a house. Also, i am living alone and had to weigh the fact of did i really need a house and want to maintain all that space. In addition, condos do have perks... fitness and business centers, pools, some even with spas, etc. and if they are built well... walls are pretty thick that noise from neighbors is eliminated.

[Barking Spider]

I inspect both. Client age for condos range as much as house clients do.
I understand why people prefer condos. Less work on the property, and yards, etc. Don't have the costs of gardening equipt, etc.

Sure condos have associations and rules, but single family homes might also be in a subdivision that has an association too.

There is a parking Nazi at the condo complex where I own a couple units. I park on the street for the five minutes it took for me to come in and change the HVAC filter, and there was a note on my truck. But on the other side of it, there was some exterior trim that needed work, and two days after I made the call, it was done.

It was perfect for my Mother and my Mother in law when they were alive. I didn't have to run over there and cut their lawns and work on the building. It was all taken care of. In that complex there are young singles, people with young kids, to DINKS, and the blue hair set (my Mom's group). They seem to co-exist pretty well.

[desertsun41]

cdlena is right. You are a prisoner in a communist conglomerate sometimes referred to as HOAs. The dummest thing ever said to defend HOAs is that they take care of all the maintaining. Yea for a fee and sometimes a very large fee. Lets just say you have a cheap monthly fee of $100. You can hire any Green Thumb Lawn Care company for much less then that and get to enjoy YOUR OWN lawn if you had a real home.

Condos and townhomes traditionally do not appreciate as well as single family detached. Come to think of it, nothing is appreciating anymore and will not for many years to come. In this economic depression they cant give away condos.

Do you want to share your walls with others? Listen to their noise? Their spousal arguments? Share parking lots with those who will slam into your door or sit on your car when chatting with the neighbor? Go home every night while climbing over speed bumps? Have others tell you if you can place a flower pot outside? Have no yard for kids or have to listen to kids make noise when playing? Own a hard to sell asset even in a good market?

I could go on but I suspect you will ignore all the bad.

No I would not buy rent or look at a condo.

[crash330]

I currently live in a condo and love it! I could not afford to buy in the suburb I wanted to raise my future kids in so my hubby and I bought a condo. yes the fees stink, but I don't like yard work and my management company is very timely about fixing any issues. I live in a very family friendly community that is a mix of young retirees, young families, young newlyweds, etc. I would definitely recommend condo life. You just have to do your research about the neighborhood just like everything else. I never hear my neighbors, no one has ever complained about my two dogs, and I have gotten to know all 4 of the other families in my building. It's great. I always have someone looking out for me and my place. I like that they police the parking issues. It keeps the rif raff out and keeps the neighborhood nice. Especially with foreclosures on the rise, I wouldn't want a destitute home in my community. Just my two cents, but it's not for everyone.

[firefightermom]

I personally would never buy a condo. I don't want to own something that shares a wall with someone else, and deal with their noises, etc, just like in an apartment building. I can't stand HOA's and most condos I've looked into have enormous fees for the maintenance and upkeep, and it just doesn't seem worth it to me. Also, seems to me that lots of people buy condos and eventually end up renting them out...which lowers resale value and again is like an apartment building.
Also, if a couple gets married and intends to have kids, they should buy a small 3 bedroom starter home first..that's what I did, and we stayed for 9 years before we really outgrew it with our kids.

[Barking Spider]

Not all condos are like Desert describes. Take the ones I won for instance. They each have a garage, so you can park inside your own garage, as well as on your own driveway.
The $75/month covers not only the lawn care, but maintenance for the exterior of the building as well as the roof. Since there is a pool and pool house, part of the fee takes care of that as well as the grounds in the entire complex.
Most people do not realize that they should be putting money aside for things like roof replacement, exterior painting and repairs. So instead of getting that nasty surprise when something comes up, you have been paying a little each month, and it's taken care of.
As far as sharing a wall. Yes, our complex is set up with two and three condos per building. So you could be in the middle one, but the other two do not have a shared wall. By the way, the shared wall is masonry block with stud walls and drywall on each side. They are pretty quiet.

While I prefer to live in a house, I see nothing wrong with condos. My 80+year old Mother would have had a real problem with a house. Either I would have had to do the yard work, or she would have had to hire it out. Same for the exterior maintenance of the building.

By the way, I have recently inspected several "condo" or PUD units that did not share a wall with anyone. If you didn't know it was a PUD or condo, you would have thought is was just a regular neighborhood.

[cdelena]

Originally Posted by Barking Spider

...
The $75/month covers not only the lawn care, but maintenance for the exterior of the building as well as the roof. Since there is a pool and pool house, part of the fee takes care of that as well as the grounds in the entire complex.
...

Just how long do you think those low fees will last? As the facility ages, inflation raises prices, and residents demand changes, the fees will go up and you have only a lone vote to add to the commune thoughts.

There are the rare well managed condos with responsible residents but it is ever changing as owners and conditions change.

I saw fees in one complex go from $80 a month to over $200 a month and assessments go from $0 to $3500 a year over a few years. And since I have left enough units went from owner occupied to sublet that the owners can no longer refinance because the mortgage companies won't write loans on the place.

Go in with your eyes wide open because you are buying into a property without having control of your own asset.

[sunsprit]

I wouldn't because my lifestyle, businesses, agriculture, livestock, and many other requirements aren't met by a condo.

OTOH, for many folks, it's a good choice ... and a nice condo can be a very good economic decision. It certainly was a good one for my folks in their advancing years ... and the $150K Seattle condo they bought appreciated in value to over $450K by the time my Mom passed away 18 years later. Even though my folks never used any of the "recreational facilities" ... tennis courts, meeting hall, swimming pools, rec rooms ... it was still a good value in HOA fees for the exterior maintenance, roofs, lawn care, common ground care, etc., that they didn't have to personally do as they'd done for years in their houses.

Their place was over double the square footage of my own house, although I didn't care for the floor plan, master suite, kitchen/dining ... but it worked great for my Mom's home based accounting business with a open office floor plan on the second level and mezzanine. The unit had been one of the sales "show" units for the development, and was built out with open office space instead of upstairs bedrooms/bathrooms. With a postage stamp backyard, and a detached two car garage, it was perfect for elderly people not needing or able to do the chores to maintain the place ... and the HOA nazi's made sure the parking was monitored and the development's rules and speed bumps were well maintained.

For years, their common walls on both sides were not an issue with their neighbors ... until a couple with some younger children moved in next door and their kids played their stereos rather loudly with all kinds of heavy bass note "music". You could hear the walls go "thump-thump" all hours of the day and night ... as loud as it was in my folk's place, I hope the little brats are now deaf in their mid 20's. I could hear their cars ... parents and children alike ... blocks before I could see them pull into their garage, so I know they all have to be having hearing problems by now.

I'm probably a little more sensitive about the noise issues because I choose to live in a remote location where I don't have to listen to that (c)rap unless I head into town 30 miles away, where some folks have to demonstrate that they've got a mega-watt stereo system in their cars for the rest of us. But that issue alone is enough to keep me from ever living in a condo ... and my folk's place was built with the noise isolation construction that should have been adequate to keep this under control. The architect just didn't anticpate outdoor concert noise levels as the design parameter. We finally got the family to "keep it down" a little bit after 10PM .... but it was a marginal improvement once you're sensitized to the noise and fatigue after a whole day of the "concert".

My folks specifically chose a two-level condo so that they wouldn't have somebody living above (or below) them for noise issues. In his last years, my Dad couldn't negotiate the stairs to the 2nd level, so it was good that he had so much square footage to live in on the first level.